This name makes much more sense than what it’s really called. My son got this for Christmas (let’s face it, it was for me too). He calls the bigger AT-AT a ‘garbage truck’, which really is a better name, so this smaller two-legged version is the ‘Lego Garbage Truck’. Drawn tonight in my Star Wars moleskine while watching Reservoir Dogs.
This is the Pence Gallery where I had my show last month. I had wanted to go and draw the building properly for a while, as it’s a very interesting design, but usually the foliage hides it a bit (but I love January!). I started this on Tuesday lunchtime, and then finished it off last night at home. Canson watercolour paper with uniball vision micro pen and cotman watercolours.
Incidentally, if you missed the show, you can see all the drawings that were on display on this new page here: Pence Gallery Show December 2011. Hope you like it!
This was a nice beer, Pliny the Elder, from the Russian River Brewing Co in Santa Rosa CA. A gift from my mother-in-law (cheers Lois!), it’s quite strong at 8%, and something of a cult favourite among beer afficionados (try saying or typing that after a few). Written all around the label are recommendations that you actually drink the beer, not save it. It’s a living thing, beer, you have to treat it right or the taste will go funny. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that (and I had a beer at Jupiter in Berkeley last month that really was very much so off). This label makes sure to remind you. “Pliny the Elder is a Historical figure, don’t make the beer inside this bottle one!” “Age your cheese, not your Pliny!” “Respect your Elder: keep cold, drink fresh, do not age!” “Do not save for a rainy day!” Good advice. Well it hasn’t been rainy here in quite a while, nor will it according to KCRA3 Chief Meterologist Mark Finan, so chin chin, bottoms up!
Drawn in the ‘beer bottle and glass’ brown sketchbook. “In Vino Veritas”; that was from Pliny the Elder, did you know.
This was sketched at last night’s Davis Civic Arts Commission Meeting, at the Council Chambers in Davis City Hall. I was invited by a colleague, Carrie, who is on the Commission to attend the January meeting, just to watch. Of course, watching for me means sketching, so I drew in my ‘people’ moleskine. It was interesting to hear discussions on the future direction of the art scene in Davis. Me, I just like to draw.
It’s time for another Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl! January has been nice so far, weather-wise, lots of mild sunny days with bare trees, so great sketching weather. This time we’ll be starting at the Farmer’s Market, and finishing up at the Delta of Venus. It’s also the day of the 34th Worldwide Sketchcrawl, in which sketchers all over the planet get out and draw their cities and towns.
START: 10:30am, Davis Farmer’s Market (C & 3rd)
FINISH: 3:00pm, Delta of Venus Cafe (B St)
As always, this is free and open to anyone who likes to draw. All you need is something to draw with and something to draw on!
Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/events/301621166540875/
Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/letsdrawdavis/
Hope to see you there!
Decided on a looser, quicker sketch today, of the interior of the Silo at lunchtime, with a very thin pilot hi-tec C in my moleskine. First day of the new quarter, and UC Davis was a lot busier once more. I sure am!
I didn’t have to go far to sketch this. This is apartment complex where I live in Davis, though not this block. They just recently got a makeover from being white and grey, and now some blocks are green, some blue. Mine’s blue. I sat out on the central green to sketch this, and listened to a history podcast on my iPod. I’ve lived in this complex for, oh blimey, over six years now, in two different (but eerily similar) apartments. We do want to move. Our upstairs neighbour gets up very early (like 4 in the morning) and her floorboards are very, very creeky, and her shower very noisy. One of the other adjoining neighbours appears to turn on their shower (also very noisy) about thirty times a night, on, then off, then on, then off, every night. A previous resident upstairs used to walk around in ski boots, it seemed, while one former neighbour opposite used to vacuum at one o clock in the morning every night with their front door open, because well that wouldn’t disturb anyone. My favourite former neighbour was a guy who lived downstairs from our old place, really nice guy, he used to sing at the top of his voice all the time, even walking down the street, and he was a good singer too, I was honestly sad when he left. Not all neighbourhood sounds are so pleasant. Car alarms – for some reason people still have super sensitive car alarms and think they somehow don’t annoy people. As a society we no longer associate car alarms with actual car thieves; we have reached the stage where people hear alarms and think, I really hope someone is stealing that car because then the annoying alarm will go somewhere else. One alarm last year kept going off day and night, untended by its owners, keeping us and most of the other residents awake, to the point where we had to report it to the police. We were surprised when a nice officer showed up, and he investigated the errant alarm. He was quite the detective too, because he shortly came back to tell us he had identified the culprit: a peach tree. I walked out to the parking lot with him, and we did an experiment: I shook the tree, a peach fell, and bam – the alarm went off. Case solved. I tried to think of a witty joke that could work in peaches and breaches of the peace, but came up with nothing (couldn’t even get an impeachment joke in there). Shame it wasn’t an orange tree, I thought later, because it could have gone to a peel. Anyway, the cop, who was very friendly, went back to the station looking pleased to have solved this riddle, and the apartment managers took the possibly unnecessary step of cutting the offending tree down (you know, it wasn’t the tree that had its alarm switched on). Anyway, such is life in an otherwise quiet, neighbourhood apartment complex. Now, I think I’ll get my son some drums for his birthday…
Incidentally, the peach tree would have been in this picture, had it not been cut down, just to the right of the carport on the left. Good job; it may have spoiled the view.
The wind was up today. It was like those swirling late autumn days from about a month ago. But most leaves have already been swirled, and now the trees are nice and bare and it’s perfect for sketching the buildings of Davis, because finally you can, you know, see the buggers. The last time I drew Old City Hall on F Street, there was too much foliage to contend with, and the shadows were just blobby masses, but now we get striking dramatic shadows, long and far-reaching even in the middle of the day. I love January. I’m always super busy (and super stressed), but at the same time super creative. I drew this at around 2pm today, after a big messy chicken burger at Froggy’s (Swiss and Shroomer, much recommended).
Perfectly bright weather – but I underestimated the wind a little. Well, I didn’t really but I was still getting blown about all over the place. I sat on the sidewalk beside my big Alphabet Moon bag (I had just been there to buy a wooden railway bridge; so sad that it’s closing down, but all of Davis was in there today buying out the stock). This whole thing took about an hour and a half, in my large Canson watercolour pad, most ot the paint being done on site (the rest – the sky, the greenery – being completed over a beer at Woodstock’s around the corner while waiting for the bus, out of the wind).
Beautiful day out today. I mean, freezing this morning, but very sunny by lunchtime, although a bit nippy. I just had to get out and sketch. Despite being ridiculously busy in January, I always enjoy sketching in this month. We often have mild, bright Januarys here. But I didn’t draw a street scene or campus view with the sun shining through bare, leafless trees, because I saw this, a little mini steamroller, sat on Shields Avenue on the UC Davis campus. What a beauty! I’ll draw sunny skies tomorrow. Today was all about steamrollers.
Very sad news this first week of the year, our favourite local toystore Alphabet Moon has announced it will be closing this month. It’s come as a great “oh no!” to the people of Davis, parents and kids and others alike. The day after hearing the news, I just had to get over there at lunchtime and sketch the place for posterity. I must say I am gutted by this news. I take my son there most weekends, and they have toys out to play with such as the great wooden railway table. When I told him, he was none too pleased. It’s always sad to see local shops go out of business, especially toystores. Toystores are where you can find those things you never see elsewhere, you never knew you wanted. Buying toys online is not the same – for one thing it’s rarely cheaper, and two you can’t see the thing, pick it up, maybe play with it. Now everyone will have to go to Target or WalMart, and while they have a lot of toys they only carry the things that all the other big box stores carry, nothing unique. As Art Brut once sang, “Don’t buy your albums from the supermarket, they only sell records that have charted.” Toys R Us? Please, that place is depressing. They have a Thomas the Tank Engine set laid out as well, but you can’t play with it, all the trains are glued down. Small independent toystores are always better, and once they are gone they’re hard to bring back. But, as with everything, we’re all to blame. As more of us buy online, and we all do nowadays, more stores go down, both big and small, and that ultimately leaves us with emptier downtowns, and much less choice. Either way, the young kids of Davis will have one less fun place to go on the weekends.
petescully 